Monday, March 30, 2015

{ Work in Progress }

It's interesting looking back at my design journal and seeing the things that sparked ideas when we were designing our Winter 2015 Deco Deco collection (in stores now). Because of the art deco and African influences in our design brief there was a strong geometric theme going on for us at the time. I remember loving this fashion shot I came across in a Vogue magazine (above left), with the strong black arrow pattern on the sheer fabric. I think that may have been the seed that grew into the Arrow painting I created when later I sat down with ink and brush and started playing...

When it came time to actually apply the design to products, there was a whole new set of challenges to overcome. Was it going to be possible to translate the inky hand painted look successfully? Depending on the method of production for various products we had to look at it in different ways. For example, the design had to be completely simplified for going onto the knitted cotton scarves and throw, and for the canvas bags we could only use the design as a totally black one colour pattern without the tonality of the original design. However, on the screen-printed cushion, bed linen and umbrellas we were able to duplicate the original artwork pretty much exactly. This is how it goes working across various mediums!

These are some of my favourite products that ended up featuring this design: